Work Programme reforms not working

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Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Public Accounts CommitteeBen Gurr for The Times

Jill ShermanWhitehall Editor

Published at 12:01AM, February 22 2013

Iain Duncan Smith’s work programme has been slammed by the public spending
watchdog for its “shocking” failure to get people into jobs. During the
first 14 months of the £3 billion Work Programme, to last July, only 3.6 per
cent of claimants moved off benefits into a job lasting more than six months.

Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said the scheme, to
get people off welfare and into work was “performing so badly” that it
needed to be fundamentally revised.

Under the programme, private contractors are only paid once they have found
work for the long term